Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Won't get fooled again - my thoughts on comic book crossover mega-events

When I picked up last week's comics, I discovered that they'd accidentally put a copy of Justice League #20 into my pull file. I didn't discover this until after I got home, so I decided that I'd just read it and see what I thought of Justice League. And I really liked it – so much so that I was considering adding it to my pull list. Until I saw that they were about to go into a mega-event that would also entail buying Justice League of America and Justice League Dark. I just went down that road with the Rotworld saga (Animal ManFrankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E., and Swamp Thing) and I'm in no hurry to do it again. I imagine that the creators enjoy these sorts of mega-events, because it lets them paint on a bigger canvas. But so often (especially in DC) they either result in massive universe changes that (from my POV) ruin stuff as often as not, or else they have to find a way of undoing everything that happens, returning more or less to the status quo anteRotworld took the latter path – it was obvious from the first issue that it was going to end with everything getting undone, it was just a matter of how they were going to undo it.

I think crossovers work better in more “street-level” titles, where you can have a bigger story without it automatically becoming so big that the very structure of the universe is in danger. For example, I'd be very surprised to learn that no one at DC is working on – or at least has pitched – a crossover event involving Green ArrowThe Movement, and Team Green. I'd probably even buy that. But if they are working on it, I hope they don't do it for at least a year: The Movement and Team Green are brand new and just finding their legs, and Green Arrow is still in the process of being brought back from the brink of death by a new creative team. But eventually I'd enjoy seeing those cross over – and if no one in DC is working on it, I'd be happy to have a go at writing it.

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